"JLJ Blues" closes Joey DeFrancesco's 2012 album Wonderful! Wonderful! with an extended blues blowout in F that gives both the organist and guitarist Larry Coryell room to stretch. The title, an acronym referencing Jimmy, Larry, and Joey, pays tribute to the trio format and the three musicians' collective chemistry. Coryell opens with eleven hard-swinging choruses of the 12-bar blues at 224 beats per minute, his guitar playing running the full gamut from bebop-inflected single-note lines to bluesy chord stabs. DeFrancesco follows with fourteen massive choruses on Hammond B3 organ, building one of the most sustained and exciting organ solos on the album, his left-hand bass lines, pedal work, and right-hand improvisations combining to create the full orchestral sound that is the B3's unique capability. Drummer Jimmy Cobb, whose initials lead the title, drives both solos with the effortless swing that characterized his playing from the Miles Davis Sextet through this late-career collaboration. The blues is the ultimate proving ground in jazz, and this closing performance demonstrates that DeFrancesco's command of the form is as deep as any organist in the instrument's history. It is a fitting and exhilarating conclusion to an album that celebrates the enduring vitality of the organ trio tradition.
